


As Pure As Snow

by lucius_complex



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Deathfic, M/M, Politics, Power Dynamics, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-21 23:39:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a Death Eater sort of world, and Harry thinks they're really not as bad as they seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

**AS PURE AS SNOW**

 

1

The autumn is giving way at last. Comatose already, she finally releases her fingers from the hardening earth. In these foggy morning walks, I see the earth on my estates gradually sucking out the colour from the once vibrant leaves; in this solitude, it is especially easy to believe in Hades, reaching out bleak fingers from the bowels below. Now only rotting leaves carpet the acres of my land, curled into tawny scrolls that crunch into compost beneath my boots. It is like walking on fields of feathery eggshells, like a subtle sort of destruction, harmless but surprisingly satisfying.

 

2

“Minister, if I may…”

“Indeed you may not,” Lucius told him from the rim of his teacup.

“But father…”

Steel eyes flickered upwards, and the younger man flinched, then shifted edgily from one foot to the other. Silence reigned between the two men in the drawing room for several minutes, unbroken by the soundless return of cup to saucer.

“I know you think I’m not ready for the position,” Draco begun.

“You are not  _worthy_  of the position,” Lucius corrected him, severing the rest of his son’s words.

The light was rapidly fading from the young man’s eyes, and his façade of confidence cracked like a sheet of ice, revealing all the fallacies of an over-indulgent youth.

“How…” A swallow to follow the faltering word. “How does my own father choose his worst enemy over his son?”

“The fact that you still refer to Potter with such childish labels displays frivolous histrionics and a failure to act with subtlety. He has proven himself, you have not. That is the end of the matter. Be grateful that I am too tired tonight to hinge on the time and resources you have wasted in expensive academies and excursions abroad, and leave.”

Despite the heavy carpet, the footsteps that departed echoed like canons of discontent, and the heavy oak doors groaned shut, trapping in the residual vapours of the bitterness of conversation between father and son. Then the heavy curtains stirred as a slim, sable-haired man stepped out of their rich velvet pools and walked out to Lucius’ armchair.

“You were harsh,” he said softly.

“I have not yet begun to tighten the leash,” his employer replied brusquely. “Pour me a port, and wipe that irony off your brow, Potter. If anybody is entitled to wear such a mantle, it is me.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to fight me for it, Minister,” Harry replied wryly from the bar as Lucius raised a mocking eyebrow.  “Since there is precious little use of my past as ‘boy who lived’, outside of cultivating a growing appreciation of how remarkably twisted one’s position can become, given time and opportunity. The mother of ironies has been spooning it on with a spade.”

“I’d have thought your title fits firmer than ever, surviving, nay, thriving, in our little Death Eater playground,” Lucius mocked.

“So it has,” Harry agreed humorously. “The title is silly, but it seems to do its job and keep me alive.”

“Imagine my surprise,” Lucius said sardonically.

“Why, Minster,” Harry mocked. “Tis your very benevolence that allows my lungs to partake in this salubrious air. And thus I am reminded, every breath I take is no surprise to you indeed.”

“Arrogance suits you like a second skin,” Lucius murmured. “Have you taken care of that little problem for me?”

“Oh Higgs? It didn’t take a moment. He’s a dismal host, however. At least, he was.”

“Is that so?” 

“He got all rude and belligerent just because I walked through his bedroom in the middle of the night. Screamed quite a bit too. Didn’t even offer to make me a cup of tea. Being Saint Potter, I took upon myself to see that he received a lesson in manners.”

Lucius sighed and took a long sip of tea. “Very neighbourly of you.”

“It’s what friends do for each other.” Harry shrugged.

“I see you had your fun.”

“But only after I finished my assignment, Mr Malfoy, Sir,” Harry replied in a coquettish voice. His vocal chords were surprisingly versatile. Lucius chuckled, but the unconscious tension only left his shoulders after Harry fished out a small red vial from his pocket and held it out for his perusal. “I took the liberty of owling Severus some samples. He should be able to reverse engineer the process and produce it from how on. Seems that he’s rather more interested in your son’s welfare than he admits.”

For long moments they both looked at the priceless potion, glinting in its fragile, narrow cylinder. “It’s still not a cure,” Lucius finally said; the silence in the drawing room had already said everything else that he could not. “Give it to Draco.”

Harry inclined his head at the instructions and implicit appreciation.

“Keep an eye on him and drive him hard. Merlin knows that you are the only motivation he responds to.”

“Hatred is the only motivation he responds to,” Harry replied from the bar as he uncorked a decanter.

“It amounts to the same thing. Do whatever works. His desire to die on me won’t materialise as long as he’s kept busy competing with you. It’s the Malfoy way.”

Harry nodded again, and Lucius’ fingers toyed wearily with the port in his hands. “You are the son that I should have had.”

 

*

 

The door slams, Draco has always been fond of doing that.

From his horizontal vista between pillow and settee Harry watched a pair of knee-high riding boots stalk over, before the pillow was snatched away from his face to reveal too much afternoon light and his demented, high-strung young charge.

“You think you’re really clever, don’t you?”

“Good morning to you too,” he replied, wincing at the sound and light overload. He hated the winter and the way the ice served as sheets of reflective glass to create light, light, and more light.

“Don’t think that I owe you any favours for this,” Draco told him as he paced restlessly in front of the settee. “It was none of your fucking business in the first place.”

“None whatsoever,” Harry agreed, raising both palms in supplication. Draco harrumphed and tossed his head and stamped on the floor; Harry almost expected him to neigh. Instead the blond man clattered over to the armchair directly opposite and sank into the leather.

Boots thudded and chaffed negligently on the enamelled table top. Colourful imprecations were offered up to the domed ceiling. Harry would’ve liked nothing more than to scratch his crotch; instead he enquired politely if Draco felt any different after taking the potion.

The young master, as Harry sometimes called his charge to immediate and furious response, looked at him and snarled that it was no consequence to him if Draco lived or died, and if he thought that this wretched existence was all it took to divest nanny Potter of his job, it would be a small enough price to pay.

“Oh, but we’ve had  _so_  much breakthrough over the years,” Harry sighed in mock seriousness. He was only half kidding; at some point they had gotten tired of circling each other and come to some sort of guarded truce.

“I’m sure you can find a new invalid to babysit. My father, perhaps.”

“What an absolutely  _appalling_  thing to say about your darling father,” Harry murmured absently, scrutinizing a bowl of pears.

“Oh come on. Does the term over the hill mean anything to you? Mental regression? Second childhood?”

“Appalling, Draco, absolutely appalling.  _Accio_  pear. That sickness of yours must have crept up into your brains.”

The boots dragged themselves off the scratched enamel, and Draco leaned over and plucked the pear away from Harry’s impending first bite. “You’ve proven to be very good at picking out the winning side, Harry dear,” he whispered. “Let’s see if you retained your talent for deduction the worth of something bigger than a breakfast fruit.”

Harry watched the boots leave. The door slammed, but not before a wet crunch was audible.

Then the door opened again, and Draco stuck his head in again.

“Good fruit,” he said.

 

*


	2. Chapter 2

 

3

 

In a corner of my eye I see the last signs of migration in the air. Soon the sky will be as barren as the land.

Given inextricably to the formal bearing that has so long been a part of me, I would never pause, even in solitude, but push myself on a vigorous pace, and look only to the path which moves elusively ahead.

I could never look down, at this age, to examine something as insignificant as the encroaching signs of winter on the ground. I would not know how. But this does not mean I cannot feel, or that my awareness of all that is beneath me is any less.

Sometimes, it is all that I am aware of.

 

4

 

A Death Eater's career could get surprisingly mundane and involve an inordinate amount of paper shuffling, thus, the spectral of one Lucius Malfoy, patriarch, principle, and leader of wizarding kind, twirling a badly chewed quill between his calloused fingers as he peered half-sighted though bookish glasses at the hundred humdrum letters requiring 'urgent' attention.

Meanwhile, Harry Potter, Draco-sitter and errand boy extraordinaire, tsked in sympathy from a horizontal position on the dark chocolate chesterfield which he had been, for the better part of two years, waging a war upon. He had discovered early that the couch was built with one sole occupation in mind, which was to bully its occupant into some semblance of an upright and rigid posture. This was not only something that Harry was constitutionally incapable of, but in principle against. Thus, it was not uncommon to see much wriggling, muttering, and an occasional kick landed on one of its raised arms.

At some point Lucius glanced up in abstract disapproval at the distraction.

"Have you nothing better to do besides cluttering my office?"

"I'm teaching your chair some manners."

"It is you who needs a lesson in manners," Lucius replied, glancing distastefully at the negligent pose and crumpled black shirt with its buttons left carelessly undone. "God forbid you ever look presentable for once."

"Don't you like my look?" Harry pretended to be hurt. "I spent hours teasing these ravishing dark locks into an artful tousle."

"Make certain to leave your artful tousle at home when you meet Kakaroff's representative tomorrow." Lucius scowled. 'You will represent the Malfoy banner, and you had better believe that I won't tolerate your usual unkempt state outside these four walls."

Harry looked down at his shirt with some surprise, mulishly observing, as if for the first time the creases and odd stain. "Well, the business of murder has not required a fashion sense so far. It's frivolous, don't you think, to doll up like a dandy for the sole purpose of sticking several sharp pieces of metal into someone? One's victim might get the wrong impression."

"You're not in any one particular business, boy, you simply do as I tell you to," Lucius replied with the forced patience of one speaking to a child. "Tomorrow you will receive Kakaroff's agent and take him to dinner. That is all you will do. My personal tailor will dress you."

Harry leaned forward, a speculative expression on his face. "You're sending your tailor to me?"

"I said so," was the brusque reply.

He resisted the temptation to whistle. "That's quite a departure, Minister."

"You've already killed everybody, Harry. If I have to continue to pay you a stipend every month, I might as well get some other use off of you." Lucius sighed and threw his quill down. "God, I'm tired. What has Draco been doing?"

"Officially? Or behind your back?"

 

Lucius smiled wryly, resting chin on fingers. "Getting his strength back, is he?"

 

"Very much so. He's even thinking of replacing you, so that's as fair a sign as we can hope for."

 

"That fast?" Lucius chuckled. "He must be feeling far better than he looks."

 

"Empty fancies," Harry shrugged. "Something to whittle the hours away with. He's still too weak to be running about hiring his own assassin, so he's been attempting to subvert the only one conveniently lying around within his reach."

 

"Oh,  _my_. And are we tempted?"

 

Harry swung his legs over the armrest and got to his feet, picking up a decanter and pair of brandy glasses on the way over to Lucius' desk. "That depends on what your tailor is going to do for me tomorrow, Minister."

 

 

*

 

There are portals, and then there are portals. This particular one had been reserved for the sole purpose of receiving foreign dignitaries, and by default came lavishly sheathed in marble, ivory, and all sorts of gilded baubles calculated to awe, inspire, or intimidate. For Harry, his surroundings were of frivolous consequence; the language of diplomacy having always been one of mercurial, political one-upmanship from which nobody emerged winner for long. Not too long ago during Voldemort's diminutive reign, dementors had stood at every pillar of this hall. Today, somebody's interpretation of Britain's Who's Who flanked the walls in somber poses; Harry felt certain that Lucius would never have counted Helga Hufflepuff amongst them. He still fondDumbledore's stony presence conspicuous, despite its obscure location in a remote corner of the hall.

 

A voice bellowed down from the wrong portal, because he's stood in front of Russia's avatar enough times to know that it shouldn't be behind him.

 

"Oi! It's Harry Potter!"

 

That flawless, unaccented pronunciation could only mean that Karkaroff had sent his only son: the one he'd hid abroad away from view and world for over twenty years until the worst of the war was over. The dark-haired and flamboyant Armand stepped, no, sprung over the portal and heartily enveloped his friend in a hug, then shoved him away as only true friends do to each other.

 

"The devil! Look at you, you look ludicrous!" the swarthy Russian bellowed.

 

"Speak for yourself, you medieval Eastern pansy. Did nobody ever tell you that it's unbecoming to jingle with obscene amounts of jewelry?"

 

"Charms, you hideously overdressed pillock. They're charms. And I see you've taken up kleptomania for moonlighting- did old Lucius Malfoy realize that you waltzed off wearing half of his wardrobe this evening?"

 

"There's nothing much else to do in Britain nowadays." Harry grinned.

 

"And now, barring the disgrace of being seen with you..."

 

"You can put up and shut up, or put off and shove off, since I'm going to be your date for the rest of the evening. Lucius wants you wined and dined."

 

"Your primitive British cooking leaves much to be desired. Broiled and boiled remains exactly that, no matter what names you give it or how many liters of lumpy sauce you pour over it..."

 

"The  _fuck_  it is!" Harry laughed.

 

"...British cooking is like her weather: soggy, unimaginative, and miserable," Armand continued, undaunted.

 

"Then starve, and may the joys of fine-grained Russian semolina forever resound in your stomach. What the hell were you doing in...?" Harry broke off to squint at the still-smoking portal, "...bloody Hyderabad, of all places?"

 

"Sampling the local charms, of course! In more ways than one, naturally," Armand began to dig about his robes. "Before you poison me with your English delights, let me show you some of the genius tricks those Asian wizards have been coming up with."

 

"You can play with your little pagan toys later. Dinner. Now."

 

"Huh, an attitude to match the fancy cloth now that you're moving up in the world? I can't say it doesn't suit you, dismally old-fashioned as it is. And good grief, Harry,  _nobody_  wears two cloaks."

 

"One of them is a  _mantle."_ Harry said defensively. 'And that confounded tailor of Lucius' is practically some kind of human lichen. My skin is still crawling from where he touched me; breakfast practically jumped out of my throat."

 

"What a wicked way to start the morning- making it out with mummies. Truly, Potter, three years living with the richest family in England and you  _still_  have no class."

 

"God forbid I ever become partial to yours," Harry prayed fervently as they made their way out of the portal hallway.

 

*

 

.


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

**AS PURE AS SNOW**

5

The first snowfall, seen in the early twilight of winter, is like a fine mix of powder and sparkle dust. The air is brisk and thin, suffusing even the most rebellious skin with colour, and the fairy mist feeds me with involuntary memories of a surreal and distant childhood, in which I used to wander round these very paths at all improper hours, hoping to catch glimpses of crystal halos.

All manners of magical apparatus I had possessed even then, and every imaginable creature of fantasy, yet it was this strangely mild natural phenomena that had captured my childish imagination. It was my secret pleasure, and, as I soon discovered to my everlasting disquiet, one shared by Muggles and magicians alike.

6

“Tell me the story again.”

“Forget it,” Harry grunted. “You hide your scrawny arse through the entire thing and expect to share in old war stories with the rest of us, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“May I point out, Mister Potter-“

“Conveniently point out,” jeered Harry.

“-that I didn’t have a choice in the matter? And I’ll bid you remember my arse is quite beautiful, thank you, as evident from the sheer numbers -in either gender- who have professed their lust. I’d have you know that there are entire volumes of sonnets out there written for my arse-“

“Merlin, stop assaulting my ears. You said you wanted to hear my exploits; I never wanted to hear yours.”

Armand smirked and filled his companion’s goblet. “So talk.”

Harry glowered at him for a minute before settling back into his chair in broody reminisce.

“You already know during the war it was Lucius’ men who found me at the Highfort, where Dumbledore had seen fit to lock his ultimate seventeen-year-old weapon until such a time when it was convenient to be unleashed on Voldemort.”

Harry grimaced at the memory and took a long drink. “Fortunately for me at that time, Malfoy still had the impression of a hapless teenage wizard in his mind, and didn’t pay much attention to the strength of the wards he kept me in. Needless to say, it was an easy escape compared to the type of cells that Dumbledore had put me in.”

“But surely you weren’t imprisoned by Du-“

“You think? Dumbledore said I’d changed, just before the war began. Said I was beginning to ‘manifest Voldemort’s darkness’, whatever the fuck that meant, and he shouldn’t have exposed me so; I remember some mumbled crap about it not being too late to salvage my soul, Merlin bless his hideously naïve and purple polka-dotted soul. After I escaped from Lucius, I went back and showed him exactly what I thought of being imprisoned for my own good.”

Armand whistled. “Dumbledore?! By yourself?”

“Lucius… helped, by default. He and his men came hot on the heels of my escape, like the good soldiers they were. But one thing I always liked about the father, unlike the son, was that he was always ready to listen to reason. Once he realized it wasn’t a trap, that is. After that, we both knew we could work together.”

“He must have taken quite a shine to you, not to have handed you to Voldemort immediately after Dumbledore committed his final fashion faux-pas.” There was something silky hidden in the echoes of Armand’s amused tone that made Harry frown as he gazed distractedly into the past. “What happened next?”

“After razing Highfort to the ground, I was a little… at sea… with myself and the way things turned out, so I took to alternating between fits of massive rages and silent sulks. I killed a number of Lucius’ men in the process too, until his lordship condescended to come down and talk to me himself.” Harry smirked at the memory.

He resumed in a quieter voice, “Now that I think back upon it, he was being uncommonly kind, wasn’t he? Probably some bizarre spin-off from his problems with Junior’s illness, which I believe was just starting to manifest around that time.”

“Do you think his son’s illness had anything to do with his decision to turn against the Dark Lord?”

Harry shrugged, not caring. “Who knows? In all probability, the old man just got tired of obeying orders. He’d gotten what he wanted from Voldemort by then, and knew more than anyone else that Draco’s welfare was never going to be a priority with Snake Eyes still lording it over everyone.”

“Is that where you stepped in and obligingly reduced Snake Eyes to a pile of dusk? How gallant. How romantic. Did the two of you hold hands over the Dark Lord’s remains and walk off into the sunset together?”

Harry laughed. “You big, wet shirt-lifting pansy. Nothing of that sort happened.”

“Don’t you dare spoil the big fable of our times for me, Potter. Countries have invaded for less reason,” Armand huffed as Harry’s eyes begin to narrow at him. “Fine. Tell me how you killed Voldemort then, at least.”

Harry shrugged, deftly skirting over details. “You know the thing is, Snake Eyes turned out to be _astoundingly_ easy to kill. The rest of the Death Eaters not loyal to Lucius… that was a whole new basket of fish.”

The Russian man smiled at the deliberate avoidance of his question, and inclined his head in mock concession. “Some other day then, perhaps. Bellatrix, of course, was the first to go?”

Harry shuddered, nodding. “That woman had an insanity to rival Voldemort’s. Powerful too- nothing seemed to kill her. I had to freeze her with a temporary wax spell before I set a torch to her- still my goriest yet. Effective though, because Lucius was present, and after that his suspicions noticeably thawed. I think at that time he was wondering what to do with me after Voldemort had become a wisp of air.”

“Fantastic,” Armand said, his dark eyes gleaming with bloodlust and greed. “Who’d you do in next?”

“Well, after that it got almost boring,” Harry said. “Her brother came looking for me, obviously, hot on the heels of vengeance. He should have waited- made him careless. MacNair followed. The… Goyle family, when Golye senior was discovered to be leading a resistance. Lucius was deeply affected by his betrayal you know, and Draco, well, let’s just say he couldn’t talk to me without spitting blood for a long time after that. Things got busy for me for after that, chasing belligerents from both sides...” Harry gripped his goblet and gave a bark of laughter. “From both sides. Who’d have thought? Anyways, by the time I got round to surfacing, Lucius had cleaned London up nicely, and everything had stabilized. One can always tell a nation’s relative stability from the size of the balls and galas held for wizarding ambassadors such as your rubbish self.”

Armand stood up then, and lifted his goblet at Harry, the gold chalice glinting like a hovering lamp against his dark cloak. “To Harry Potter then. And his new wizarding order.”

“You mean Malfoy’s.”

“Same thing.”

*

Harry shut the study door quietly behind him and paused to admire his employer’s long burnished hair snaking down the back of a rich brocade robe. Strangely introspective and slightly intoxicated, he wondered if perhaps there wasn’t something in Lucius’ motives- and perhaps his own- that he had missed all along.

A dry voice cut off his thoughts. “That’s some late night rendezvous you had with Armand tonight, Harry.”

“You’re up late, Minister,” Harry admonished. “Are you sure all this miserable paperwork isn’t beyond some secretary’s efforts?”

“Are you offering to take it off my hands, Mister Potter? Thinking of taking my place at the head of the wizarding world?”

“You can have the glory of it all, if all it does it chain you to a desk; I simply can’t see myself shackled thus.” Harry made a sign warding off evil.

“Some occupations, strange as the idea may seem to you, include the use of parchments and quills rather than daggers and blood, and doesn’t preclude them as any less important than yours.”

“You’ve become very comfortable with the former. When’s the last time you attended to anything that doesn’t involve paperwork?”

Lucius raised a brow. “I daresay the same would apply to you, in regards to the latter.”

“And why would you want me any other way?” Harry grinned. “Unless you’re grooming me to take over.”

Lucius sharply inhaled. “Your audacity…“ Despite his efforts, the barest hint of a smile curled the blond man’s lips, and he shook his head.

“Well, I don’t see why not. We both know that I do take after your fancy clothes exceedingly well.” Harry pirouetted, mantels flying, and flourished with a mocking bow in front of the large desk.

The fair head considered Harry’s new appearance at leisure, before dipping down into parchment again. “What did Kakaroff’s son want?”

Harry hid his smile. “He insisted on wasting my time recounting war anecdotes.”

“And naturally, your ego could not help itself.”

“I did neigh but sing the praises of your good governance, my lord.”

“I’m not sure if your good praises, such as they were, can justify the entertainment bills that I get drowned in every time your friends come calling.” Lucius scowled.

“Russia is a good ally.”

“We are not at war, Harry. With both Voldemort and Dumbledore gone, and their little toadies all but exterminated by your admittedly efficient methods, there’s next to no threat left.”

Harry snorted. “Dissenters are like bacteria. You can never wipe them out. Armand ensures there are no questions asked whenever I leave a mess.”

“That is something we really should talk about.”

“I don’t leave that much of a mess,” Harry defended.

“Have I questioned your methods of late, crass as they may be? And have you not taken outrageous advantage of my liberal reign to run around like some thug, doing exactly as you please these last three years?”

“Doing exactly as you please, Minister.”

“Perhaps a promotion, then, for services rendered.”

Harry harrumphed. “I was thinking more in lines of a well-deserved vacation.”

“And these few years have been what, exactly?”

“You tell me,” Harry said, and they shared what might almost have been a smile.

“Draco has been doing very well. Something that I have you to thank for, I know.”

Harry shrugged easily. “Less work for me, Minister.”

“He doesn’t seem to require the type of manhandling that he used to-” Lucius cleared his throat delicately, “-which, amongst other things, begets the question of what should now be done with you.’

“Well. You are giving me a promotion.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Lucius’ voice was too innocent, and Harry’s eyebrows shot through his dark fringe.

“Are you thinking of retiring me, Minister?” he demanded, tightly.

“Good heavens, no. I doubt you’ll make my life that easy.”

The dark-haired man’s smile stretched from ear to ear. “Too right.”

Lucius glared. “I need you to continue what keeping an eye on Draco for me. Focus his mind on something before he gets too restless. The post of Assistant Minister, for instance.”

Harry kept his face carefully blank, and said nothing.

“Oh, out with it.”

“Not to disparage the hopes of a father, but do you think that Draco is ready? For something of this… magnitude?”

“He is not,” Lucius admitted, revealing a vulnerability of expression that made Harry suddenly aware that he was talking to the man who Lucius was, and not the politician. “He might never be, not by himself. But he might yet grow into the role, and this is a possibility that I need to assess.”

“Hmmm,” Harry allowed the slightest hint of commiseration to colour his voice. Then he grinned. “As to your current Deputy, I’m sure I can find ways to persuade him to seek an early retirement.”

“Of course. But not with your customary weapons, I think,” Lucius said, and the smirk dropped from Harry’s lips as he watched his employer withdraw a small roll of parchment from his sleeve. “You will sheath your weapons, effective from tonight, and the language of bureaucracy will from now on be your double-edged sword.”

Harry stared at the parchment held out to him as if it was poisonous. “Bloody hell,” the dark-haired man whispered. “You are retiring me.”

The Minister of Magic smirked. “Too right.”

*


	4. Chapter 4

 

**AS PURE AS SNOW**

 

7 

Once I had pointed out a ice halo to my son, when he still followed me on my morning walks, trudging short legs through the snow behind me as only a seven year old would. He nodded solemnly at the spectacle, insisted that he was beyond the need for such elaborate hoaxes, entertaining as they were, and bid me ask whichever fool servant I had sent behind some bush to return to the mansion before he caught his death of cold.  

Time passes without one noticing, seasons turn, winter arrives. And children grow up, and grow distant, and winter grows wearisome. 

8

Harry has been sulking.

He tipped his wingback chair down and pulled gleaming oxford lace-ups onto the table, glancing idly at various object d’art and other office extremities. Draco’s door, behind him, was shut and silent as the grave that he seemed always to have one foot in. Merlin alone knew what the boy did in there; perhaps the same thing as Harry, which would be nothing.

A beep startled him- laughable really, considering his late position, and Lucius’ curt voice filled the air.

“Potter, get in here.”

Harry scowled, and considered ignoring his summons, but he found himself leaving his office and wandering out into the hall, walking down the carpeted length of oak-panelled walls with the portrait heads of past Ministers following him.

Scrimgour’s portrait blanched at the sight his murderer, but wisely held his painted tongue, and Harry couldn’t resist winking at it before he entered the receiving hall where Lucius received his appointments. It was much grander than Draco’s, and came with a privately keyed fireplace warded with spells vicious enough to make even Harry cringe.

“Harry, my boy!”

“Undersecretary Slughorn,” he replied, with a barely respectful inclination of his head.

“Oh, balderdash.  As we are practically holding the same positions now, I insist you call me Horace.”

“As you wish, Horace,” Despite the greasy smile, Harry could almost smell the fear and unease on his ex-professor. Slughorn would after all be in a position- perhaps the only position- to be privy to any knowledge concerning Harry’s surreptitious life after the war. The rest of London still gaped at his sudden, unexplained presence in the ministry alongside Draco, although Lucius had clamped ruthlessly hard on speculation both amongst his ministry officials and the press.

Dead men, after all, tell no tales. 

As soon as Slughorn closed the door behind him, Harry dropped his respectful facade and scowled at the man who was burrowed behind a massive desk fanned with papers. The government plaque burnished behind Lucius like a halo, dramatised by yards of twisting velvet in bottle green and yellow. An avatar took up the table space on the upper right corner, shaped into the scales of justice. Three tongues of green flame flickered insistently on one of the scales; making Harry wonder who’s call Lucius was ignoring.

“I hate this,” Harry said without preamble. He gestured at the imposing office. ‘It’s like being in a gilded cage.”

For a brief moment it looked like Lucius was on the verge of agreeing. “I really don’t care either way, Mister Potter.”

 _Mister Potter_  indeed. No one has called him that in years, and didn’t care for it now.

Harry pulled out one of the three Louis-fifteen chairs in front of the desk and settled down, crossing his legs and taking his time rearranging his pinstripe suit around him as he asked in a deliberately casual tone, “ _Slughorn_ , Lucius? Are we feeling nostalgic?”

“Do you really want to disapprove of my new secretary...  _Harry_?” the warning in his employer’s voice was none too veiled. “You will do well not to underestimate Horace. Besides, the old one was almost certainly in my ex-deputy’s pocket.”

“Which you wouldn’t have had to worry about if I’d been allowed to deal with him,” Harry snapped.

“Merlin help me with defiance of  _boys_  who think they know everything. Ludovic is not a Death Eater on the run, Harry. You cannot waltz into his Auror patrolled mansion and crack open five skulls, casual as you please without calling the whole of London upon your pretty head.”

 “You think my head is pretty?” Harry preened.

“You are retired,” Lucius grounded out. “Your new role is to be the permanent acting secretary to the Deputy Minister, and I suggest you start acting immediately. Fun and games are over, Harry, and I need you here in the ministry now, and here you will stay.”

“All right, dammit,” Harry husked. ‘But only because you called me pretty.”

Lucius opened his mouth to retort, but a raised voice beyond the door distracted the two  men, and a moment later Draco had barged through the doors, looking ill, angry, and out of breath. Harry saw Slughorn’s hapless face a second before the doors swung shut, and felt a sudden commiserating connection with him- it was likely that Draco had not forgotten being overlooked all those years ago for by his Ex-Potions professor.

Draco clenched his hands on the back of the chair, breathing hard, before he proceeded to cough up a storm. Lucius watched his son hack away and smear blood about his sleeves with seemingly disinterested dispassion.

Finally Draco broke off and calmed down, by which time Lucius had gone back to his paperwork and was pointedly ignoring the two men in front of him.

Harry idly watched as Draco essayed to speak twice and failed, and sighed internally. “Draco, perhaps-”

“What, Potter, what? Must you be present at every meeting I have with my father? Does  _our Minister-_ ” -the sneer Draco directed at his father could rival the ones Harry remembered from Hogwart days- “require your presence when he pisses as well?”

Harry waited patiently as the young man broke off to cough again, taking no offense for words that the boy obviously intended for his father.

Lucius however, had no such forbearance. “Go home, Draco,” he said dismissively, not bothering to look up. “Take the rest of the day off.”

A sharp silence, for Draco’s coughing had abruptly stopped, as if his throat had been slit, so sudden was the stillness of his face.  A trickle of blood ran down his translucent lips.

“Yes, sir. Yes, you cold-hearted bastard,” he whispered. Then Draco did the unbelievable and spat on his father’s table, leaning forward to meet Lucius’ surprised eyes. Blood and spittoon splotched thickly on the smooth parchments, dribbled down his sallow chin.

Harry was stunned.

“You are out of line!” Lucius roared, rising to his feet in fury. His voice was a tightly controlled whiplash, and angry magic swirled and tingled in the room like ominous eddies on an incoming snowstorm. Harry found the anger in Lucius’ eyes gloriously alive; a pulsating quicksilver that danced in his irises like thunder, and was enthralled by it, excited in a way that he never was when he wasn’t stalking a prey.

But Draco laughed, a laugh like a broken glass, and the moment was shattered. He tried to laugh again, but the tear in his throat allowed only a bloodied gargling sound, sickening to hear.

Harry came up quietly beside him, and Draco turned to him with something approaching affection in his eyes “Ah, Saint Potter. About time too.” A softly mummered sleep spell, and Draco slumped into his arms.

“Take my son home, Harry,” Lucius said, waving his arm wearily. 

He nodded as he picked up the frail, prone body as if it was a child. Slughorn hurried in, gave the room one sweeping glance, and went out to prepare Lucius’ private floo- forcing Harry to concede that Lucius did perhaps have an eye for spotting talent, perhaps to make up for his inability to produce one.

“Goodbye, Minister,’ he said softly, just before the doors shut. Lucius didn’t hear him, and Harry’s last glimpse was of long, disconsolate fingers splayed on the desk and a head bowed low over the blood smears left by of his son. 

 


	5. Chapter 5

  
********   


**AS PURE AS SNOW**

9

There is much to sense in the earth beneath the flattened snow, and every winter I feel increasingly that bleak calling, like a stray that longs to return.

I am the sun; above the earth I own it all, am owed it all. Yet the grounded snow and slumbering earth feels that much safer that I end up feeling vaguely deprived.

The height from which one looks down can sometimes be dismally far. Nobody ever tells you that elevated into the sky, the only thing that surrounds you is a radius of emptiness, the smothering fog and silent clouds

 

10

Naturally, Harry could not resist recounting the incident of the day to Armand over dinner.

Armand rolled his eyes. “Serves Lucius right for naming his son after a bloody animal, for crying out loud-” 

“You should talk. It’s more popular as a Russian name than here in London.” 

“What, does your new job extend to protecting the honor of badly given names now?”  

“You know Draco and I have no lost love between us. Yet I’m just... impressed, despite myself. In all my years living with and watching those two albino tigers circle each other, I don’t believe I’ve had never seen the cub throw down such a gauntlet.”

“Ah, but will the cub win?”

Harry shrugged. “Who knows these things? I think Lucius might just let him, or at least let him think so. Merlin knows he could use the confidence.”

His Russian friend chucked darkly. “Quite the family man, your good Minister.” 

A snort. “If you like them like sharks. He had his wife put to death, you know.” 

Armand shrugged. “Wrong family.” 

Harry considered this. “True.” 

“What a waste of beauty,” Armand mourned. “He could have just kept the body around for …other… purposes.” 

“Only wretched Siberian scavengers like yourself would think of something so vile. But you could always take it up with the son, I’ve heard some people call him pretty. Might even conveniently kick the bucket before he becomes boring in bed.” 

“Why, are you planning to keep the father for yourself?” Armand’s face was sly. 

Silence. Then coolly, “I’m not sure if I get your meaning.” 

“Oh, come on.” 

“See that statue of Godric with his sword? That’s where they impaled the Head Auror for snide and asinine remarks which he had no business making.” 

“By ‘they’ you refer to yourself, right?”  

Harry held up his hands with a sigh. “The problem with people who know you too well.” 

The Russian man laughed, then lowered his voice so rapidly that it was barely above the rustle of curtains. “Between old friends, I’d say you’ve gotten rather attached to your foster family of late, Harry.”

It wasn’t concern in Armand’s voice, Harry decided, so much as a candid admission that he intended take advantage of Harry’s newfound affections, and liked Harry  enough to tell him in advance. “Well I must make myself useful. Especially since the assassin part begin to look more and more redundant of late. Wouldn’t want the old man to think I’m dispensable now, would I?”

“You look well taken care of,” Armand‘s gaze traveled over his exorbitant attire. “It’s a partnership that’s worked out well for both sides.” 

Harry leaned back, toying with the stem of his glass. “I can’t complain about the way Lucius treats me, but I’d be a fool to call it a partnership. The master is distracted with his ailing son, and has lately failed to rein in my leash. I’m still a slave with benefits; that’s all I’d ever be.”  

His friend snorted, and Harry smiled wryly as he continued, “Still, if one was to consider the alternatives of choosing between Dumbledore, Voldermort or Lucius Malfoy- its one farce for another, Armand. This one at least has less of it, and on occasion even graces me with a little honesty. But enough of the schmaltzy; tell me, how is your father?” 

“He’s doing well. He’s just been made Grand Marshal of the Crown, so his ego is further away from the ground than ever.” 

“Is he still having trouble with the Polish insurgency?”

“Don’t even go there. Does it  _ever_  end?” 

Harry’s eyes gleamed. “I’ll be happy to put paid to the ringleaders for him.”  

“Oh, daddy would  _love_  to owe you more debts. I already hear no end of it as it is, so please, do me the favor of not doing  _him_ anymore favors.” 

“Oh, I don’t know. It’d be nice to get in a holiday, rake up a few more bills for Lucius to complain about.”   

‘Aren’t you supposed to be  _retired?_ ” Armand’s snickered, and Harry’s urbane expression crumbled at the reminder. 

“All right, dammit. I’m sick to death of retirement. Hunting is my game, not juggling bloody parchments and firecalls.” 

“By all means then, be my guest and find some respite at St P's whilst conviniently getting rid of father's enemies. You know I'm happy to take the credit. ”  

Harry speared a piece of meat on his knife. “What does your father want, old friend?” 

Armand’s dark eyes darted once around the empty dining room, alighting on his host’s impassive face. The silence between them held, until Harry nodded and picked up his wand. “ _Reclusio_. Talk.”  

“You have an excuse?” 

Harry made an impatient noise. “I don’t need one.” 

“The continent is agog with rumors that Lucius gives you carte blanch to run London on his behalf, which you’ve just proven true-” 

“And I’ve proven this how?” 

The swarthy Russian sat back, crossing his arms. “When the scales of power start tipping any one way, you pay attention.” 

“Nothing is tipping. Besides, Draco is slated to be the next Minister. _If_ he lives that long.”

“So?” 

Harry concentrated on carving up the contents of his plate. ‘You know I harbor no ambitions on that front.” 

“More fool to you, old friend.” A pause, and Armand shook his head in disbelief. “England on your plate, and you’re about to scrap it into the bin like so much rubbish.” 

“I  _live_  in the same manor with the Minister of Magic, Armand. And believe you me, there is nothing particularly covetable about that position. Besides, what’s it worth to you?”

“Wouldn’t want to be accused of a lack of due diligence,” his friend’s tone was mild. “Russia must be ready to respond to change, after all. And change is in the air, old friend, whether you wish it or not.” 

“You want to know which corner to throw your weight in, when the time comes.” Harry stated. “The question is, what else do you want?”

“Are you asking me what I want? What my father wants? Or what Russia wants?” 

“Ah. I see.” 

“ _Finate Incantatem_. Think about it, Harry.” 

“I suppose I have no choice, do I?” 

* 

When Draco showed up at the meeting of the Security Council he had not been invited to, supported by Harry’s arm and a silver dragon-headed cane, the hush that fell upon the assembly became a pin drop silence. Dressed like his father, who was watching him from the pulpit with an inscrutable expression, Draco descended to his box, and cast a  _Sonorus_  charm.

“Does my illness make you uncomfortable, gentlemen? Do you feel so insecure of your hold to your own virility, so frightened of the inevitable failing of your bodies that the mere sight of another’s infirmity embarrasses you?” His voice vibrated across the room like a violin string about to break.

“ _Good_. Take a good look at this ailing body, then, and remember your reactions well. Because I shall remember you, each and every one of you, when the time of reckoning comes.” 

Harry’s gaze sought out Lucius’, who gave him an imperceptible nod whilst seeming to listen intently to Slughorn’s murmuring. He took Draco’s arm again, feeling the thrumming of an engine about to break, and Dissaprated with a crack, a second before the indignant voices of the assemblymen resumed their clamouring. 

As soon as they blinked into the warm drawing rooms of Lucius' private apartments in muggle London Draco pulled his hand away with a snarl. 'I didn't need you to accompany me.'

'You say that retrospectively,' Harry snapped, 'but you wouln't be singing the same tune if the Council hadn't been so stunned by your sudden defiance. If their honour guard had reacted faster, for example, or thrown a curse across the floor.'

'Father should have let me do it alone,' Draco said stubbornly. 'Your presence diluted the effect.'

'Oh, I wouldn't worry about that,' the dark haired assassin murmured. 'Everyone's eye was trained on you the whole time we were in that pulpit.'

Everyone's eye that is, except for the Minister of Magic himself. 

Lucius' attention Harry knew he had to himself.  

*

 

 

  
  
*

.


	6. Chapter 6

 

**AS PURE AS SNOW**

 

11

Granted, for a wizard, I am not so very old. Fewer are the reasons for me to be feeling the sum of my winters upon my breast; since the decease of the Dark Lord so many years ago none had since held power above me, and none would think to challenge their places beyond what orbits I permit them.

I have slavering subordinates to foolishly fawn over the long remaining years of my reign, and the most disparaging remarks acknowledge that Draco would have many more reasons to develop his lack of patience before I would need to think of handing over my patrician reins.

They do not know what I really want to hear. I do not want to hear the truth.  


12

“I will be taking Draco to St Petersburg with me,” Harry announced at breakfast.

“I see. Do you require anything?”

The sable-haired man shook his head. “Armand will see to our needs.”

Lucius stared at the teacup in his hands, seeming not to hear him. He startled when Harry placed a hand on his arm, and looked up into eyes the colour of  _Avada Kedavra,_ sympathetic and seductive.

“I promise, Lucius, you will get what you want,” he said softly.

“Bring him home alive.”  

Harry smiled at unspoken need in his voice, and left the table

*

“Merlin’s balls, man,” Harry shivered. “What is the point of all his wealth if your father is too cheap for central heating?”

“That’s what good vodka is for, Potter.” 

Harry stared at Draco, whom he had never seen in such high spirit since Hogwarts.

Armand gleefully thumped the table with the bottle. “Now that’s  _real_  pureblood taste speaking, old friend. Listen and learn!”

Harry smiled good-naturedly and filled their three glasses. “To good taste and bad faith,” he said, meeting Draco’s eyes coolly speculative eyes. He raised his glass.

“To the future,” Armand said, picking up the plot effortlessly.

They both looked at Draco, who slowly picked up his glass. “To the dawn of a new empire,” he whispered cryptically, and tipped his glass.

Harry swallowed his vodka, hot liquid coursing down his throat. He could feel in his bones the wheels of fate falling into place, and suppressed a shiver. 

It was the deepest, darkest winter he had ever encountered in Russia, and Harry never felt so alive. And he knew as he looked across the table at the flushed, intense expression on the younger Malfoy, neither had Draco.

Armand followed his gaze, and said appraisingly, “You really carried your own earlier at the infiltration.”

Draco raised one haughty eyebrow “Still think I’m a liability on your little jaunts, do you?”

“Nay, not me, I am quite converted,” Armand inclined his head. “That dark spell, where you reworked the original version of the backfiring jinx was quite impressive. Where did you learn that?”

Draco coughed, and smiled darkly. “That, gentlemen, is a story for another day, provided consumption and too much vodka doesn’t carry me off first. With that cue, I bid you goodnight.”

The two men watched Draco bow mockingly and made his way out of the drawing room.

“He’s his father’s son.” Armand said quietly, as he looked Harry.

“Aye. And about time too.”

Armand eyed him speculatively, and waited with too much patience. Harry worked his throat, irritated to find the words incredibly difficult to say. “Lucius is… failing.”

“How?”

Harry squinted into the distance. “He’s…thawed, again _,_  of late. Even more so than before. He spends all time barricaded either in office, or in that study of his, or wandering aimlessly about his estate- in the middle of bloody winter, mind you- totally oblivious to my presence. Anyone could have killed him if they had a mind. I’ve been thinking it might be old age-”

“That’s ridiculous- you’re Muggle mentality is showing, old friend,” Armand cut in. “Purebloods don’t feel their dotage for a good century or more, so unless your good Prime Minister have had his pureblood documents forged, the man should still be in mint condition.”

“Whatever it is, he’s lost heart. Whether with worry over Junior or because of a loss of direction, I don’t know.”

“Not necessarily a permanent state.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You so-called Death Eaters. It’s all bluster. Look at Lucius Trueheart palpitating over his son’s health. And if you can step out of line all you want, but one scraped knee and daddy will tell the Crown Court in St Petersburg to fuck themselves and come running.”

Armand opened his mouth, then shut it, and poured himself another shot, ignoring Harry’s empty glass. “Do you really see it that way?” he demanded. His voice was belligerent.

“The truth hurts,” Harry observed lazily as he reached for the bottle himself.

*

Armand came sauntering downstairs the next morning, whistling a gay tune.

“Father was so ecstatic with our introductory operation last night, he’s given us carte blanch to do as we please,” he announced with a great deal of satisfaction.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, Mister Malfoy,” Armand was practically crowing with delight, “that the Royal Weaponry is now open to us.”

“The best spells and most advanced weapons money can buy equips the Royal House and their favoured few,” Harry explained.  “Back home only your father’s bodyguards and the top tier of Unspeakables have access to such equipment.”

Harry’s eyes blazed with battle lust, and Draco clearly was getting caught up in the excitement, despite his apprehension.

“Potter, I’ve never killed before.”

“I know,” Harry said simply. “You’ll learn tonight.”

*

Harry had only visited the Royal Weaponry of St Petersburg once, in Lucius’ company. Now he found himself showing the son the same wonders of their magical civilization, imparting the same catchy observations that had been told to him by the father all those years ago.

Located in a Disillusioned wing of the Winter Palace and maintaining the splendid original rococo touches that had decayed away from Muggle-maintained sections more than half a century ago, the Weaponry had a hallowed, efficient air around it that never failed to arouse a great deal of envy in Harry. Draco had grumbled when the temperature dropped once they entered the magically protected place, but his complaints were soon forgotten as they moved along from room to room, each one more heavily warded and more valuable than the next.

The displays became smaller and more sophisticated, and Draco’s eyes narrowed as he read the tags on a shelf with neat rows of stoppered vials capable of levelling entire cities with plagues and airborne diseases. “There are enough armaments here to wipe out every Muggle on the planet,” he hissed softly once Armand was out of earshot.

“In that case,” Harry whispered back, “imagine what they’re not showing us.”

“Your  _old friend_  must do a lot more than bounce around the international floo floors and bum off the goodwill of his embassies.”

Harry laughed at the image. “That’s his day job, and Armand has many… interest, in a great number of fields. I don’t think even Igor himself knows exactly how many pies our old friend has his fingers in, despite the spies he’d sic on his own son.”

“I knew I should have gone to Durmstrang,” Draco lamented, but by the time Armand came sauntering back, Harry was pleased to observe a new respect dawning on Draco’s eyes for his irrepressible old friend.

He gazed thoughtfully out of the window at the frozen Neva River, its stark, ageless grace seemingly unchanged from his memories; yet seasons were turning, to be replaced with the new. A cycle coming to its conclusion.

Winter was death and the birth of slumbering seeds, waiting to be awakened into existence.

Armand threw a dagger at him from behind, and Harry caught it in one hand without turning around. He could see Draco go stiff with tension on the window pane reflection.

“Just an old game we used to play,” he assured the white-faced blond as he turned around.

“Show off,” the Russian sniffed. “Keep it, that’s your reward for catching it.”

“You’re dreaming if you think I’d ever return something like this,” Harry snorted, and lost himself admiring his new toy. It has a serpentine handle which moved in his palm to accommodate his grip, and whispers of magic slithered in his head, probing at his magical core. “A Malice dagger. Brilliant.”

“Why does the edges look wet?” Draco asked edgily.

“Probably poison.”

“Malice weapons have an appetite,” Armand explained. “This one hasn’t be fed in a long time, so she’s just as likely to turn on her master as his enemies.”

Draco blanched, and sat down. “I see I am in the company of a couple of bloodthirsty Death Eaters wannabes who enjoy playing Russian Roulettes with more than their enemies’ lives.”

Harry scowled darkly and snapped, “Shut up. You don’t know anything about Death Eaters.”

“What’s your problem?”

Armand held up a placating hand. “Harry has an old bone about Voldemort’s idea of Death Eating. It’s been festering for awhile now, and anybody who presses that button gets a crash course on the lamentable inaccuracies in prevailing DE philosophy.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Harry obligingly snarled. “Your counterfeit self proclaimed Death Eating father and his spawn.”

“You see?” Armand sighed. “He’s impossible in this mood. We should let him be for awhile.”

Draco however, was fascinated. “Is that why you’ve been pursuing the old Death Eaters with such a vengeance?”

“ _Death Eaters_ , they call themselves,” Harry’s voice was ugly. “Preachers of purity spewing forth pureblood rot.  _Voldemort_  himself made a miserable, half-baked Death Eater, and his followers all but desecrated the name. As if a mask and a stupid tattoo is going to change the inner makings of a coward.”

“And what makes you such an authority?” Draco demanded to know, ignoring Armand’s subtly discouraging expression.

 “Why Draco, cant you guess? I’m the only real Death Eater left. And maybe my  _old friend_  here will join me one day.”

Armand sighed with a long suffering expression, and Harry smiled, almost kindly.

“At the end of the day it’s not about power, you know, that’s just... an inevitable benefit. We don’t call ourselves Power Eaters.  No. Death Eaters  _eat_  deaths, Draco. They  _eat_  their deaths, and then death ceases to exist for them. They become eternal, because they lose the ability to fear. They do this by eating the deaths of erstwhile enemies.” 

Draco watched the fanatical gleam in Harry’s eyes, reluctantly drawn in by his conjectures. “And what if all you desire is change?”

“Scholars and politicians won’t admit it. The masses won’t be able to see it. It’s not philosophy or policy, nor any highbrow shit that shape the destinies of nations,” Harry said gravely, as he tossed the Malice dagger at Draco. “It’s this.”

“Weapons?” Draco murmured, as the snake hilt came alive and hissed at him.

 _Avada Kedavra_  eyes met neutral greys.

“Violence.”

*


	7. Chapter 7

 

**AS PURE AS SNOW**

13

There is a frost in my heart which the onslaught of winter touches every year, and fills with yearning. It pierces skin and tissue and bone and reaches into my very soul, and I am reunited with the ice that surrounds me, recognizing it as the quintessence of that which I am made.

A silver of me wonders if this is a desire to die, but always fled before the soft whispers of truth became audible.

 

14

The wind whistled through the barren trees, a bleak, Dosketavian landscape of endless snow. Three empty brooms hovered in silence, hidden in the shadows of a cluster of pine trees. Their riders were huddled under the dark green awning of a seemingly abandoned warehouse at the edge of the Neva forest, their breaths forming vapors in the cold.

“Lovely,” Armand said sourly. “Three-headed guard dogs, immune to magic. I hate em.”

“We don’t have to deal with them until we escape,” Draco consoled. His cane was conspicuously missing, swapped with numerous charms that Armand had insistently foisted upon him.

Harry ignored them as he traced a complex rune into the wall beside them. The runes shimmered, and a door wavered into existence. “Let’s go.”

They went through the door and into a small, Muggle-looking office.  The scent of magic, however was unmistakable.

Draco riffled through the messy drawers. “What are we looking for again?”

“Blueprints. And to kill as many of the cursed Polish infidels as possible, of course,” Armand said succinctly as he worked through the cabinets, some of which were warded.

“There’s nothing here,” Harry said impatiently, and walked off. He was clearly more interested in the killing. Draco followed him out of the dim and stuffy office and into a corridor dotted with more twist and turns than a labyrinth.

Harry pulled the blond into a room just before the sounds of footsteps echoed past them.  Three grim-looking wizards dressed in black passed them by, their wands drawn. Harry nodded at them, fingering his new dagger, then stepped out and whistled.

One Polish wizard had a dagger between his eyes as soon as he turned around. The other one was bounded and gagged with an  _Incarcerous_ spell _._

 “ _Expaliarmus_ ,” Draco hissed at the third wizard. “ _Avada Kedavra.”_

“Very good,” Harry said as he retrieved his dagger. “Try a new spell, next time,  _Mortis_. In some cases you might be dead before you finish pronouncing  _Avada_.”

Draco nodded, shaking slightly from the exhilaration of his first kill.

Armand strolled over and clapped the blond on his back. “I say, did I miss the cherry popping? Well done, old man.”

“I’d be happy to do a repeat performance,” Draco grinned.

“Looking forward to it.” Armand walked back and kicked their captive over non too gently to reveal his face. “This one won’t know anything. Draco?”

The blond drew his wand out again. “ _Mortis_ ,” he incanted, and watched with glee as the wild eyes widened one last time, and the body slacken on the floor.

Armand was about to congratulate him again when an unholy din broke out not far away, and the sounds of shouting ripped out towards them.

“Uh uh.”

“Did you manage to find what you were looking for?” Harry asked.

The Russian shook his head.

“Good, I’d hate to leave the party so early,” the ex-assassin replied as he led the way up a flight of stairs. “Let’s go say hi to your friends.”

“By all means, lead the way.”

Draco obediently followed the two dark haired wizards skulking upstairs.  His eyes were unnaturally bright, and he looked on the verge of giggling.

Armand cocked his head as he examined Draco’s slightly feral face. “Are you sure you want to cover him, old friend?” he said to Harry. “I could do it for you.”

“I don’t see why not, seeing as we’re practically brothers,” Harry purred, slinging an arm around Draco’s neck and placing a loud smack in the empty air between them. It was a testimony to how far Draco had come in terms of self-control when the blond simply shook his head tersely and forbade comment.

The upstairs looked like a mess hall studded with rows of pillars. Clusters of tables were filled, some with maps and parchments, others with potion-making apparatus which clearly doubled up as an impromptu lab. On the far end of the hall a group of about ten wizards were busy equipping themselves. They turned and saw the trio, and one of them shouted in Polish.

Harry’s first spell lifted two tables and flung it at the wizards with brutal speed, scattering the surprised group while Armand and Draco scrambled for the safety of strategic pillars.

 “Who are you? What business do you have with us?” growled one of the wizards in heavily accented English.

Armand clearly couldn’t resist. “We are righteous musketeers loyal to the Crown, here to put an end to your villainous lives!”

Across the room, Draco tightened his hold on his wand and rolled his eyes at Harry who grinned back, and started incanting fireball spells.

Somebody beat him to it, however, because a moment later a large globe came sizzling their direction. Harry released his own fireball, which met its twin half way and exploded, leaving a wall of burning tables between the two groups.

The battle had begun.

*

Draco was shouting spell after spell, weaving in and out with reckless abandon until Harry grabbed at his arm and dragged him to relative safety behind a pillar.

“As much as I enjoy seeing you in your element, I’d rather not return a corpse to London,” he grunted irritably. “My suitcase would never wash out the stains.”

“There’s only four of them left,” Draco argued, panting. “We can take them!”

Armand laughed at them from across the room between trading spells. “I think you’ve created a monster, old friend!”

“Less talk and more body count,  _old friend!_ ”

“Slave driver,” the Russian murmured, as he obligingly slew another enemy with a cruel riposte.

One of the remaining Polish wizards seemed to be an alchemist of sorts, as he had been throwing all sorts of vials and powders at them that either exploded or melted away everything in its path. He stopped to unstopper one the many bottles hanging from his chest. A shaggy, evil looking creature slunk out, and grew to massive proportions before Harry’s narrowing eyes. He conjured a volley of arrows at the thing, but they all bounced harmlessly off.

Armand joined him. “Aw,  _shit_.”

“Kill the remaining insurgents,” Harry told him. “I’ll get this one.”

“You have to break the bottle,” Draco yelled behind them. “It’s the only way.”

Harry withdrew his Malice dagger and searched for a clear angel, but the creature was blocking its master. His dagger sang in his brain, willing itself to be fed. 

Roaring, the creature rushed at them.  Two great arms picked up a blazing table and threw it at them. Harry sidestepped easily and rolled away from the volley that came at him, but Draco was not as fast. The charring remains of the table hit him, and he fell to the floor with a cry.

Harry made to dash over, but the monster was much nearer to Malfoy than he was. It picked Draco up by the legs as if he was a doll, and swung him at the wall. A scream and a wet crunch was audible, and Harry fervently prayed that the ensuing silence was because the blond had lost consciousness, and not died.

Harry tackled the monster from behind, straddling his shoulders and driving his dagger repeatedly through shaggy fur, again to no avil.

“Fuck. fuck fuck fuck!” the dark haired man cursed, then shouted at Armand. “Have you fallen asleep? Kill the fucking alchemist!”

There were two Polish wizards left. One was obviously about to make his escape, and the alchemist who released the monster was squaring off with Armand, spitting curses at each other in their native tongues, identical looks of murder in their eyes.

The Polish threw a bludgeon spell, and Armand backed away and lost his balance, but his wand didn’t miss its mark.

“ _Avada Kedavra_ ,” he hissed, and the death spell hit true, sliding green into other wizards body and ripping out his life force. The Russian picked himself up and ran to the body, and lifting up his booted foot, brought it with malevolent force down upon the dead man’s chest.

Bottles shattered with bones, and Harry’s dagger suddenly slid into the creature’s warm flesh. The skin beneath him turned green with poison and begun to melt, and the monster dropped Draco’s body with a roar and started to claw at his back, trying to dislodge Harry, who held firm and stabbed repeatedly into the ribs, until the creature collapsed on the floor, quivering, and he dismounted and ran to the body lying prone on the floor, gently turning him over.

Draco’s ribs were cracked and he was drowning in his own blood as they filled up his throat and choked him.

“ _Anapneo_ ,” he whispered, and Draco stopped choking, but his chest didn’t move. Blue veins were bunching up on the blonds’ neck and temples.

Armand came to stand over them, breathing heavily. “You know we’re well and truly fucked if Junior dies in our hands.” 

“Fuck off,” Harry said tightly as he focused on more healing spells. “Go after the bastard who escaped and bring back his guts.” He felt rather than saw Armand nod and move swiftly after the remaining perpetrator. 

Carefully, Harry healed the bones.  “Breath, goddamn you.”

Finally Draco regained consciousness. He was still choking on his own blood, but his eyes opened, and he breathed.  

“Draco.” 

The blonde batted Harry’s hand away weakly as he struggled to sit up. “Don’t go soft on me now, Potter.” 

Harry smiled, shoulders slack with relief. 

Draco looked blearily out at the charred remains of the room and the skewer of dead bodies. The hand he ran over his fair hair came away mucked with soot and blood. “Yuck,” he grimaced distastefully. Then he looked at Harry, his expression demanding. “I want to do it again.” 

Harry threw back his head and laughed. 

.


	8. Chapter 8

 

**AS PURE AS SNOW**

15

One does not live as long as I do and stay ignorant and unwatchful of the strange dance between nature and time. Fate is the child of their union, veiled from birth and always the sum of what you should have expected, and what you can never anticipate.

I must be getting maudlin in my old age, because today I paused on walk to recover a dove lying unnoticed under the snow laden bushes. Nature and time would have finished the frozen thing, and I would find little fallacy in their logic. Fate, however, would act as progenies do, and strive to defy them.

Thus it was with bemusement that I brought the half dead creature home.  
  
  


16

The trio stood in front of the ballroom, fair hair sandwiched between two dark heads, and raised their glasses in response to the toast that the Minister of Magic had proffered at the latest political triumph.

Harry emptied his glass of Dom Pérignon with satisfaction and sighed. This, he thought, was really as good as it gets. Then he gazed around and saw Lucius disappearing through the doors of a veranda, and revised his opinion. Perhaps it could get even better.

He caught up with his employer at the balcony, and leant casually over the rails. Lucius was seated on a stone bench, looking out at the fairylights dotting the snowbound hedges below.

 “That’s a cute little familiar you got yourself, Minister,” Harry said. “Though I wouldn’t have figured a dove much to your taste.”

Lucius shrugged. “I found it dying on my land.”

“How compassionate,” Harry teased. “Though I could always use some kindness myself, you know.”

Lucius snorted. “When you know none?”  
  
'You wound me,' the dark haired man replied extravagantly, 'showering everyone else with tokens of affection and leaving me out in the cold.'   
  
'Harry.'  
  
The younger man straightened. 'Yes, Lucius?' he said softly, tasting the name on his tongue. He observed the blue eyes flicker at his presumptuousness of familiarity, but said nothing.  
  
'Have you become...bored, with the work?' There was something else in that question, something that Harry couldn't identify.  
  
'Of course not.' Eyes searched. 'And you?'   
  
It was several moments before the older man blinked. The silence that hung between them became thick, sinuous. Harry thought about the sly grin that always hovered about Armand's lips whenever he spoke about Lucius, and realized that his friend that seen this coming earlier than him.  
  
He leant closer, almost hovering over the sitting figure. 'Did you get what you wanted, Lucius?'  
  
The older man squinted at him through his glasses. 'From?'  
  
The hand he reached out was slow, giving Lucius an opportunity to react. Two fingers gently plucked the glass away, watching the cornflower-blue eyes dilate in surprise under the fairylights. Something, harry realized, some sort of magnetism, was giving birth in the warm, thick air between them. Redefining boundaries.  
  
Harry lowered his face, and his mouth swept the fringes of Lucius' forehead.  He saw the blue eyes close involuntarily at the contact; sensed surrender in the small sigh that escaped the thin lips. Irresistibly, his mouth drifted downwards, seeking to draw another sound; to swallow hot, wet heat-  
  
Then a cough became audible in the distance, and Lucius shifted his face away.  
  
Moments passed. A soft wind swept long strands of moonlit hair into Harry's hands, and he idly caressed the fine mane between his fingers. Lucius responded with an almost smile, but his eyes were faraway, and Harry felt a twinge of envy for whatever memory had wrestled  away the blond man's attention away.

He hated anything he couldn’t kill.

“I suppose you want a reward for services to my son.”

“A Lifedebt, Lucius, is no mere exchange of  _reward._ ” Harry placed a finger on the other man’s lips, tracing it shape. “And seldom will someone extracts so small a price as I...am prepared to do.”

“Much experienced in the field, are we?”

“First time for everything.” The dark-haired man smiled and moved his finger away, before temptation overwhelmed him. “Between two evils, I always try to pick the one I never tried before. Perhaps I’ll move up my demands from there.”

“You logic is dazzling, as usual.” Lucius said wryly.

The dark haired man sat companionably beside Lucius, the sleeves of their coat brushing.  “I told you I’d give you what you wanted. Do you deny receiving it?”

Lucius didn’t answer, and Harry shifted his face so that his breath tickled the blond hair that blew in his face. “And now you know what I want.”

“The nature of your fee is...unanticipated.”

 Harry watched his lips move, and his hands pressed a little harder into the cold stone seat beneath him. Staying unmoving and untouching was rapidly becoming less and less an option to him.

“I think,” Harry mused, “I shall choose not to interpret that as an out and out refusal.”

“This can of worms, Harry. Is it really worth opening?”

“Surely you don’t think so modestly of yourself, Minister.”

“Hmmm.” They shared a silence amongst equals.

Finally the Minister spoke. “At this stage of my life, Harry, all I want is peace.”

Harry gave a short bark of laughter as he stood up and gazed back out into the wintry garden. “Next you’ll be telling me how you deserve it after all that you’ve been through.”

*

Harry sighed into his champagne.

Of all the unanticipated turns in his life, this surely was the most bewildering, and the one he felt least equipped in dealing with.

His mind was restless, scattered, and his body hummed with needed release. Armand’s decadent company would be undoubtedly called for tonight.

As he drained his glass and watched Draco striding over, Harry observed the dragon-headed cane swinging unused from the crook of Draco’s arm and smiled to himself. He does not think it will make another appearance after this.

His smile dropped away, however, when he saw the fire in the blonds’ eyes.

“Don’t think that I don’t know what you’re trying to do, Saint Potter,” Draco rasped at him. “I’m not quite as sick as you’d like to think I am.”

Harry suddenly realized who had coughed earlier in the balcony. Rapidly he calculated how much he could have overheard.   
  
“Draco, listen.”

“No, you listen. It is you that suit my purpose now, not the other way around, are you clear? I am putting up with your two-faced schemes because it suits me. But either way works out for you, doesn’t it, Saint Potter? It always does.”

“Has,” Harry said absently. “It always has. I make no claims to the future.”

“Why, could that be an element of genuine truth and humility in your voice? How positively redeeming.”

“It keeps you amused, doesn’t it?”

Draco’s face, though still angry, bordered on the thoughtful by the time he said, almost to himself. “Yes. Apparently it does.  _But_ ,” he warned silkily, “some things are fated to remain out of reach, even for you, Golden Boy. Do we have an understanding?”

“Crystal,” Harry said, and clinked their glasses together. Draco harrumphed and walked away.

Armand came up to him. “What’s eating him?”

“My appetite.”

“ _Ah._ Junior disapproves.”

Harry picked up another glass from a passing footman. “Junior would rather see his father in Hell, being buggered by Satan himself.”

“I’m sure you’ll find some way to work that to your advantage.”

Harry shrugged and continued brooding into his Dom Pérignon.  

Armand frowned at him and seized his arm. “This sort of response is most irregular, coming from you. Now you have to assuage my worry, so we are going to have to see a specialist. A naked, buxom specialist with loving hands and a chest that bounces like ripe— ”

“Enough already, I’m coming.” Harry laughed as he was hauled away, champagne sloshing.

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

**AS PURE AS SNOW**

 

17

I see Harry’s long-slumbering ambitions awakening, like a ravenous shadow intent on swallowing everything in its path. Perhaps they have never slumbered, and his machinations so far without directions; inconsequential rather than avaricious, such as that of a curious child who balances a baby bird on his palm and could either pet it or crush it, and think little of the difference. With hindsight, I comprehend that Dumbledore had been wise to fear him. I realized I had lacked that wisdom.

Perhaps Draco does not.

All the same, as I muse in my solitary, snowbound walks, I seem unable to summon the will to care very much where these changes may lead us.

  
18  
  
Harry gestured negligently at the crates of vodka stacked up againts the wall as he strode into office. 'What the fuck is this shite doing here? I thought I told you not to use this office as your personal holding bay.'  
  
'They came at the behest of your erstwhile employer, so take thou stuffed arsehole up with him instead,' his Russion friend commented from Harry's desk, and threw down his quill. 'You're in a fine temper today, old friend,'  
  
Harry glowered back at him. 'Shove it, Armand, I'm not in the mood.'  
  
Behind him, Draco sauntered in, hands in his pockets, and leaned against the crates. 'Give Saint Potter some room to rant. Its nice to see the human side of him once in a while.'   
  
'A pardon for the remaining Death Eaters!' Harry exploded.  
  
'Ouch,' Armand winched.   
  
Draco shrugged. 'I'm not happy with it either, but Harry--'   
  
'Yes, I am in fact also 'not happy' with it! Thank you fucking much, Draco!!'  
  
'To be fair old friend, you havent been able to get at the ones hiding in the continent. Perhaps this will flush them out.'   
  
Harry clearly hadnt heard a word that Armand said. Hatred seethed in his face as he paced and crooned, 'Oh, come back, little Death Eaters, come back. All is forgiven. That's the new tune that Lucius wants the New Minstry, your New Ministry, to warble to the press.' 

Draco raised speculative eyebrows at him. “ _My_ new Ministry, Potter?”

“Break out the honeymeads, lay in the homespun carpets, Draco boy. We’ll hold hands and sing ‘God bless Lord Voldemort’.” Armand said. “His is the only statue missing in the Hall of Dignitaries, you know.”

Harry spun round. "Is that all you have to say about this madness?"

"Well it doesnt concern us, does it?"

“Russia is disappointing, old friend. Choosing to remain a bystander at such an exciting time for Britain.”

“I eat your horrid food without complaint, don’t I? Do you know a greater depth of sacrifice? Besides, Russia knows better than others that a ‘New Ministry for Britian’, as the soundbite goes these days, does not yet exisit—”

“My father—”

“Your father clearly does not maintain the political ambitions he once had.” Armand’s face, when quiet, was a diplomatic force of nature, softly spoken and coated in steel. “Russia’s question is, do you?”

There was no judgement in his face: neutral, impassive, and waiting. “We have an excellent relationship with Lucius of course, and he has so far not pressed us for much. But we are laying the foundations for a more profitable relationship with his successor, whoever that may be, and it is not known yet if one will preclude the other.”

Draco looked at the two of them.  “My father will never step down.”

“No, he won’t.” Armand said coolly. “He wouldn’t know how.” The look he gave Draco was assessing.

The blond paled and seemed to shrink, but he was standing, clutching at his cane, and Harry felt a twinge of pride.

“Enough talk about such rubbish,’ he said, ignoring the look of relief in Draco’s eyes. The seed had been planted, and it would take time to see if anything would grow.

Behind Draco’s back, Armand gave him an imperceptible thumbs up, and he returned it.

*

“Look at him. Stuck in a job he doesn’t want, trapped in a life he doesn’t know what to do with. I say we charge in there like good Calvary and relieve him of his burden on life.”

“The fact that it makes you the next Minister of Magic must be merely incidental, of course,” Harry said, coming to stand beside him.

“Opps,” Draco said, as if the notion never occurred to him.

“Opps, indeed.”

“Some jobs come with occupational hazards, Potter. You of all people should know that.” Draco broke off to shake his head. “Have you seen that confounded pigeon he’s taken to carrying around?”

“I believe that the ‘confounded pigeon’ is a dove, Draco. They’re symbols of peace, you know.”

“That says it all, doesn’t it? Death Eater pardons, ‘ _symbols of peace’_ , excreting bloody bird-droppings all over the office, what’s next, a Ministry-sanctioned pillowcase for discontented house-elves? Bringing mudbloods back into wizarding world?”

Harry’s face darkened at the Death Eater reminder. “Much good a pardon will do them by the time I’m through.”

“Why Saint Potter, whatever to that soft spot you have for our Minister?”

Harry gave him a cold smile. “You know, I thought that Umbridge bitch was full of it, but she did get one thing pat.”

“And what’s that?”

“Whatever the Minister doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Draco laughed and patted him on the back. “Given your colourful methods of dealing with ‘earstwhile enemies’, Harry, I’m not so sure. Granted, Lucius is slipping, but I doubt a Death Eater bloodbath will escape even his rheumy eyes.”

“Give me some credit for subterfuge, will you? And your father’s eyes are not ‘rheumy’, dammit, he’s still in his prime.”

“Saint Potter, do you  _have_  any idea how much of a perversity you really are?”

“I’m glad you approve.”

“Hmmm. I can’t complain about looking almost virtuous in comparison. And by the way,” Draco broke off and swallowed; “Armand said that my...  _kills_ , in Russia, doesn’t count.”

“It doesn’t.”

“What the fuck do you call taking down four wizards practically at the cost of my _own_ life?” 

Harry took his time replying as he idly examined his wand. “An erstwhile enemy, Draco” Harry told him, “is not  _every_  enemy you come across. And it has nothing to do with your assorted battlescars, risk, cost or whathaveyous. ”

“In that case, what makes you any different from Voldemort, if the only qualification you entertain is whether your sainted self approves—”

“My approval or otherwise is of little significance. Whether you eat a death or not is a question only you can answer.”

Draco sneered. “I’m all ears.”

Harry stared straight into his eyes. “Are you still afraid of Death?”

The  blond looked taken aback. “I…”

Harry shrugged easily. “It is of no consequence to me, what your answer is. An erstwhile enemy is the one who takes the fear of death away. The  _death_ , Draco, of fear. That is the biggest gift another person’s life can give you, the biggest gift you can take from another. But the question of interest to me is, why would you want to become a Death Eater?”

The blond turned away and stared at the window. “I don’t.”

“Then there’s really no debate to deliberate over, is there?” Harry asked slyly.

Draco’s face was still clouded, but he struggled valiantly to affect Harry’s urbane air. “Strangling that blasted pigeon probably counts.”

“Only if you get away with it,” Harry told him archly. “It seems to have become inordinately fond of your father. I hardly see the two separated.”

“That’s easy to figure out. It recognises a fellow bird brain.”

Harry chuckled.

Draco glanced with interest at a stack of gold rimmed letters “What are these?”

“The new ordination that Lucius just approved,” Harry said, yawning as he stretched. “I haven’t had time to read them yet.”

The blond leaned against Harry’s desk, picked up the first envelop and unsealed it. “I swear, Potter, the parties you and your little Russian sycophant get up to are positively legend.”

“We’ve got to find  _some_  way to whittling the sad, lonely hours away,” Harry said negligently.

“You might try something called sleeping once in a while,” Draco answered him distractedly as he read the letter. His frown deepened.

“What?”

The blond looked up, scowling. “Son of a bitch barred me from full membership of the security council.”

Harry pursed his lips. “That puts you in an uncomfortable place.”

“It puts me in the exact place he wants me! On my knees, toad-eating the patriarchal bastards!”

“After your little performance last month, that might be high order. Why didn’t he consult you first?”

“Have you ever known our Holy Father to condescend to explaining himself?” Draco balled up the parchment,  _Incendoed_  it, and stalked into his office.

Harry stepped after him. “Don’t be hasty. Granted I'm not any more enamored of his recent streak of - _conservatism_ , than you but perhaps there’s a good reason for his not exerting his influence in your favor. Try placating him first.”

“Placate him? I’m going to  _kill_  him,” Draco said thunderously, and slammed the door.

The dark-haired man bemusedly considered the slammed door, listening to the sizzling hiss of an avatar call, followed by Draco’s muffled voice shouting through the flames at Lucius.

A small smile curved his lips.

*


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

**AS PURE AS SNOW**

19

There is a mist on the ground today which recalls in me memories of the night Narcissa fell through the Veil. Her tears were crystal upon her cheeks as she swore to me that she was loyal to my name above her own, that she had been as chaste as ice. I told her I believed her, and thanked her for the son she had given me-

The dove flutters on my shoulder, and I blink back into the present. All is white and light above, but the mist whirls around my feet like a Veil laid upon the snow, silent and patient.   
  
All is white and light; yet I sense the darkness beneath them, soft as the footsteps behind me. 

  
20

Wan sunlight filtered in through the ornamental gables above the stable doors. Harry sat on an overturned oat bucket, shaking his head at the bits of straw sticking to his trousers and scuffing up his patent oxfords.  One of these days he was going to get out of this brass-buttoned monkey suit and _burn_ it.

For now however, there was something else he wanted more.

The clatter of hooves drew near, too brisk and irregular to be Lucius. Harry cursed.

The stable door banged open and Draco rode in too fast, almost crashing his horse into the nearest stall. “Saint Potter. What are you doing here?”

Harry scrutinised Draco’s hot-tempered horse, veins bunched up and still steaming from its exertion in the cold. “You’d want to cool her down first.”

Instead, Draco turned his horse around and bored down on him. “Why don’t I leave you to it? This way, you don’t have to saddle up yourself.” His voice was almost solicitous as he dismounted and threw Harry the reins. 

“That’s uncommonly kind of you,” the dark-haired man replied guardedly.

“Oh, I don’t see why not, seeing that we’re practically  _brothers_ ,” Draco said, throwing Harry's mocking words from Russia back at him. “He’s at the eastern end of the estate.”

“Thank you.”

The blonds’ hand was already on the door, but his back stiffened, and he turned around. “My Lifedebt, Potter. And the credit you gave me for what whatever we accomplished in Russia.”

It was this moment, more than any others that made Harry realise that his old classmate had finally grown into his own. “Consider them settled.”

“Then we are finally on even ground.”   
  
There was something cold and deadly in Draco’s eyes that gave Harry pause, made him want to search deeper into the simple words. But temptation called to him from the eastern end of the estate, and he dismissed his unease and mounted the snorting horse.

“Of course. As equals.”

Draco watched him clatter away on his favoured horse, going east. “And now Father, we are also settled,” he whispered to the empty air.

*

Lucius was walking on the snow at a snail’s pace, his white horse trotting sleepily behind him.

Harry almost rode past him, for the man’s pale coat and breeches blended well into the snow. He dismounted and fell in beside his employer, who gave him a dry look but otherwise refrained from censure.

‘There’s no escaping you, is there?”

“None at all,” Harry grinned. “Resistance is futile, you know.”

Lucius gestured at Harry’s horse. “Moreover when your own son aids and abet the enemy. Whatever you have hanging over his head, it can’t be small indeed.”

“A matter of little consequence, since it is not him I would rather settle it with.”

Lucius stopped walking abruptly and turned to face him. “You have a lot of nerve.”

The horses neighed uneasily, sensing tension. Harry glanced away as he said idly, “You made an offer. I accepted. And now it is time to settle the price. Now. Here.” He grinned again imprudently. “Before Draco changes his mind.”

The blood drained from Lucius’s face as drew out his wand. “So this is your game. You may have gotten my son to heel, you bastard—,”

Harry lost his temper. “If this is a  _game,_ Lucius, it is one I grow tired of playing.”

“I will kill you first myself before I give you what you want—”

“ _Imperio_ ,” Harry barked, and Lucius seized up and froze in midair. His furious features became vacant, eyes turning to glass. “Put away your wand.”

Harry walked up to the suddenly docile man and pressed his palm against the side of his face.

“I want so many things, you know. None of which you would really approve. But wanting  _you_  seemed to have wormed its way to the top, and I’m not sure that I approve either, but here we are.”

“I keep thinking about you,” Harry murmured with a sigh into his lips. “Fuck, Lucius, you’ve gone to my head like the worst kind of craving, and you choose this time to act as pure as freshly driven snow?” He threaded his fingers through the fair hair and curved a hand over the nape of his neck, leaning forward and kissing the man chastely on the lips. Then he drew back a little, with a sigh.

“ _Finite Incantatem.”_

Lucius stumbled, his hand clutching his head. His face was filled with distress and disbelieve, but he didn’t move away from Harry’s arms. “You..”

“I’m sorry, Lucius,” the dark haired man said very quietly. “Truly. I wish there had been some other way.”

Lucius moved out of the circumference of his arms, and gazed pensively into the forest. His anger seemed to have evaporated along with the spell. “The last person who had me locked in the same unforgivable was the Dark Lord. I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense, considering the order of things...”

“I am  _not Vol_ —”

“I know that, Harry.”

“Thank Merlin for small mercies,” the younger man snorted. “So what happens now?”

Lucius looked sardonic. “Why Mister Potter, one of us capitulates, and concedes defeat.”

For Harry, the mildly spoken words hurt in places he didn’t know existed. “Well. I’ll see you in office then, Minister.”

A hand grabbed his reins back before he moved away. “I think capitulation is only required from one party, Harry.”

“Lucius—”

“Now. Here.” To Harry’s disbelieve, a small smile actually curved the thin lips. “Before I change my mind.” 

Rather than reply, Harry anchored his hands on Lucius’ waist and slanted his mouth over his. It was a long moment before he felt the lips finally parting beneath his, and the surge of tongues entwining, tasting each other, filled him with a sense of peace and anticipation which seemed both perfectly aligned and at odds with each other.  

“Loath as I am to complain,” he finally broke off to whisper against Lucius’ lips, darting small kisses everywhere; “Do you mind if we move ‘now’ and ‘hear’ to somewhere with a fireplace, perhaps even a bed?” 

The other man gazed at him through half-lidded eyes, revealing little. “Indeed, I can find nothing amiss with such a suggestion.”  

Harry exhaled, and grinned crookedly as he held up an arm. “I’m probably not doing myself any favours by telling you this, Minister, but you were probably the only person I would actually have taken a no from.”

Lucius linked his arm in Harry’s companionably. “I know. Perhaps that is why I said yes.”

* 


	11. Chapter 11

 

21  
  
Armand’s face came into the flames. “Well. I see something’s made you  _very_  happy.” 

“Retirement, oddly enough.” Harry held up a parchment, “I am sheathing my daggers, old friend. Permanently.” 

The Russian's eyes narrowed speculatively; something between calculation and disbelieve. “You must be joking.” 

“But Lucius isn’t.” The dark-haired man took a deep breath. “We will be leaving London tonight, and have no plans to return.” 

Armand pursed his lips. “I see. And what of the Ministry?” 

“Draco is ready. And you, my opportunistic old friend, will be there to guide his first tottering step.” 

Armand’s firelit face filled with wonder. “I can hardly believe it, but apparently you are serious this madcap liaisonof yours. You do know Harry, that it  _is_  technically possible for Lucius to rule London  _and_  keep a warm bed.” 

“In that case, old friend, you know nothing of my awesome prowess between the sheets,” Harry boasted urbanely before his facade cracked and he broke into an almost schoolboy grin. “The man’s not that young anymore, you know.” 

“Not to dilute your enthusiasm, but what will you do when your little frolic in the countryside becomes boring?” 

A shrug. “That, old friend, is too far a road ahead to see.” 

Armand shook his shaggy head. “I think it’s a dammed travesty, but you will have your fun, knowing you. Run off and shack up then, and live in sin until you when you’re ready for action again.” 

“Try not to turn the place upside down in my absence.” 

His friend folded his arms together with a smirk.

“Oh, I think we’ll manage to hold the fort down.”  

* 

Harry was still burning documents in the fireplace when Draco barged in and threw himself on the couch, seemingly on the verge of collapse. Harry had never seen his eyes so wild. Frowning, he noted this wasn’t Draco’s usual illness, not an absence of energy- it was  _exhilaration_ ; a surplus thrumming through the blonds’ fragile frame.

“I did it.  _I did it,_ ” the blond started laughing. “You bastard, Potter, you were right!”

“Congratulations then, old thing,” Harry said, torn between irritation, amusement and wariness at Draco’s odd behaviour. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some housekeeping that won’t wait.”

“I looked death in the face. I ate it, and his- his death seemed to fill me up.” Draco gave another hysterical bark of laughter, his eyes blown out like white torches. “Just like you said. Ah, me sainted Gryffindor, you  _are_  a true Death Eater.”

Harry looked for long moments at Draco, recognising the symptoms. The successful culmination of months of careful tending. By rights he should  be celebrating his victory, but he found himself feeling strangely detached.

He picked up his Malice dagger and tossed it at the blond. “Here. I think you deserve taking her over.”

Draco caught it in one hand and unsheathed the blade. He hummed the dagger’s song and stroked its snake hilt fondly as it came alive and wound itself around his wrist.

“She accepted me,” he said with some wonder.

“Of course. You’ve passed the test.”

“Potter, the energy!” Draco acted as he was only half-listening as he lifted his shaking hands.   
  
Something vaguely urgent clawed at Harry as he observed the blond, and with a frown he turned away from the fire.

“Draco, whose death did you eat?”

The blond didn’t hear him, trying to gasp for breath in huge, desperate gulps and laugh at the same time. He was obviously still in the grips of shock.

The vague feeling in Harry’s veins sharpened, turned cold. He approached the sofa, compelled by the sudden absence of heat in his veins, the heartbeat suddenly thrumming with foreboding, and his voice turned quiet as he asked Draco again. “Who’s death?”

The blond begun inexplicably to choke. _“Potter!”_

The dark-haired man stared at his hands, which seemed to have found Draco’s pale, fragile throat - and his fingers tightened in imperceptible degrees.

_"Who’s death did you eat?”_

_"_ The erst…gah, the erstwhile enemy!Potter, I can’t breathe!”

Harry’s fingers eased away, very slowly. The silence in the room was roaring in his ears.   
  
“Who?”

Draco watched him as he recovered, breathing rapidly, his face white; its expression revealing his knowledge that Harry could kill him now, as casually and as easily as a toy. And yet the ice-blue eyes gleamed with triumph, invulnerable, unafraid. His metamorphosis complete.

“I thought it had to be you, Potter,” he finally whispered into the dead silence. He lifted his chin and looked at Harry, a face full of hatred and high esteem. “I  _wanted_  it to be you.”

Harry gazed at him, looking suddenly into another pair of similar eyes, and an unfamiliar door suddenly opened in his head- a door didn’t remember, letting in…

Something roared to life in his veins, and suddenly he recognised it, from a long time ago. From another life.

When he still had something to risk, something to lose.

For the first time in years, Harry tasted fear.

_“Where is he?”_

  *

His broom swung between the slumbering trees, swerving violently as he navigated half blind through the forest, pushing a break-neck pace. The wind rushed past his ears in shrill whistles.

Harry’s face and arms were scratched, bloodied lines raked with twigs, and branches dumped their snow down his back as he brushed past them. His breath streamed in front of him, as if pieces of his own soul was leaking from his lungs, as if somebody had plunged a dagger through something vital. 

He found the body in the small glade where the land dipped. Landing with such violence that his ankles almost broke, he ran to Lucius; curled upon himself, and brushed away the veil of ice chips which had formed over the unmoving body. His hands touched something soft and feathered on his breast- Lucius’ familiar - faithful onto death.  The dead dove slipped unnoticed onto the frozen ground, its wings seemingly clasped to its frozen heart as Harry lifted the blond head onto his lap.

“Lucius,” he murmured, feeling tears stab his eyes. 

The dying man lifted his eyelids with difficulty. “Did you get what you want?” he whispered. The beautiful cornflower blue seemed to be draining from his eyes. His face was deathly white, deathly calm.

Harry started to shake, too numb to be surprised at his own reaction. Too numb, too late, not to recognise the cold.

“Draco’s Lifedebt. Repaid by mine.”

“No,” Harry said, his voice breaking, as if he was the one dying. His gloved hand caressed the long hair in long, desperate strokes.

“Spare Draco, Harry.”

“Hush. He will never come to harm. I swear to you.” Harry clasped his frozen fingers. Hot tears singed the flecks of ice forming on the blond’s bloodless face. “I promise you.”

The older man seemed to smile, blue lips curling as if he was warmed by the ice creeping up around him, mellowed in a way he never allowed himself to be in life. “My son.”

“Not your son, goddammit! I  _never_   _wanted_  to be your son.”

Harry felt frozen fingers brush his face. “You are the son I should have had.”

“No,” Harry choked again. Shaking, he touched his forehead to the dying man. “I don’t want this. Not  _this._ ”

“Rule wisely.” One last sigh, and his face became still, clear as a frozen stream. And years from now Harry would always remember Lucius like this, at his most beautiful; forever out of reach. 

Tears streaming and shaking, he bent down to kissed the lifeless lips. Then he gathered the body to his chest and stared unblinking into the falling snow.

“Damm you, Lucius, for giving me what I want.”

*

22

I always thought the ending would be different. I dreamt of sordid, titian struggles and the clash of thunder, not this gentle snowfall- this soft surrender, tender as a brush of dove feathers.

I always imagined Narcissa’s composed face bending over me, cold white hands and husky platitudes. Instead I see a dark creature, breathing smoke: dragon and inferno, and Harry is all flame and unforgiveness. My son stands beside him, a step behind, and I know that as long as Draco does not move away from this shadow, he will always be safe, under the wings of a dragon. One who kills effortlessly and without thought, yes, but fiercely protects his own. 

It is a better life than I had known under Voldemort. It is enough.

I think of all the affairs I failed to wrap up, but just when I start becoming anxious about the loose ends left unaddressed, a vision swims fills my head:

The Malfoy line stretches out before me, spread out like a grand tapestry, and I see the thread that I am, one out of millions, joining the weave into the future. One out of  _millions_ , and whatever I thought was important passes through me like running water, and I close my eyes, but still I see the colours, glowing and cascading.

The colours of the tapestry are brilliant. Pure and unsullied, they go on forever. I close my eyes, and am content. 

~*~

_Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny._

—William Shakespeare,  _Hamlet._

 


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